So what's up with Belkar and tracking?

[Charles Phipps]

I never quite got why he wasn't able to do it.

[holywhippet]

To follow tracks you need to use the survival skill, hard to track targets require the survival skill and the tracker to be a ranger. Problem is, survival is modified by wisdom and Belkar has a very poor wisdom score. On top of that, he apparently never put any ranks into survival either.

So basically every time Belkar wants to track something he's facing nothing but negative modifiers.

[Chronos]

Right, rangers in 3.x aren't just automatically skilled at tracking; they have to spend skill points on it. And the Belkster has higher priorities for his skill points. I'm not exactly sure what they all are, since he has a ton of them, but he has something else.

[JasonDoomsblade]

I have no idea what any of what any of you guys said means.

[Charles Phipps]

Translated.

"Belkar never bothered to learn how."

[Deathwisher]

Right, rangers in 3.x aren't just automatically skilled at tracking; they have to spend skill points on it. And the Belkster has higher priorities for his skill points. I'm not exactly sure what they all are, since he has a ton of them, but he has something else.

Mainly Hide and Move silently. he seems to be quite good at that (Sneaks across a battle field, without any cover during the first battle with Xykon).
Sinc ehe has no search or spot skills either, I gues he put those two at maximum. Perhaps tumble also.

Personally, I think of Belkar as a satire of some players I've seen, who were always drooling over the ranger's automatic two weapon fighting abilities (before 3.5 came out). They figured it would make for a great melee warrior, which it can, but never played their character as an actual ranger, just a dex based fighter with two weapons.

[SurlySeraph]

Me, I have this pet theory that Belkar only has 3 levels in Ranger, and is actually a Fighter/ Assassin. This would explain not only his lack of tracking, but his general lack of all rangering abilities.

[mockingbyrd7]

Me, I have this pet theory that Belkar only has 3 levels in Ranger, and is actually a Fighter/ Assassin. This would explain not only his lack of tracking, but his general lack of all rangering abilities.

That... is actually quite plausible. The only flaw that I see in your logic is that Belkar has Evasion, (as seen in strip 469! :smallwink:) which comes at Ranger level 9.

[factotum]

The other flaw is that we've seen Belkar successfully casting scrolls of Cure Serious Wounds (admittedly when V cast Owl's Wisdom on him), which I'm pretty sure would require him to have quite a few levels in Ranger--not sure enough about the rules to say how many that would be, though. (It would have to be at least 4 because Rangers don't get any spellcasting ability whatsoever until that level).

[Chronos]

Mainly Hide and Move silently.Certainly, but 3.5 rangers get a base of 6 skill points per level, and Belkar seems to have an above-average Int. So he's got at least 7 or 8 skills if he's maxed them all out, and more if he hasn't (we know at least that he has Gourmet Chef non-maxed). I have a hard time thinking of that many skills he'd take before Survival.

The other flaw is that we've seen Belkar successfully casting scrolls of Cure Serious Wounds (admittedly when V cast Owl's Wisdom on him), which I'm pretty sure would require him to have quite a few levels in RangerHe could actually be any level, and still pull that off. It's possible to cast scrolls that are too high a level for you; it's just risky. Maybe he just got really lucky.

Evasion, I could have sworn Assassins got, but it looks like I was mistaken. So I guess to make this work, we'd have to throw in some Rogue, too.

[Deathwisher]

Certainly, but 3.5 rangers get a base of 6 skill points per level, and Belkar seems to have an above-average Int. So he's got at least 7 or 8 skills if he's maxed them all out, and more if he hasn't (we know at least that he has Gourmet Chef non-maxed). I have a hard time thinking of that many skills he'd take before Survival.


Knowing Belkar it could be anything. Heck, he took the feat 'craft disturbing mental image' and from his reaction it seems that kobolds are his favoured enemy. Talk about non-optimal, weird choices! :smallbiggrin:

His social skills, while hampered by his psychotic behavior seem quite good, so he probably has a fair number of skill points in Intimidate and Bluff, perhaps even persuade. He made a hat out of YikYiks skull and a food bowl out of YokYoks, so maybe some points in crafting skills. He also managed to ride the dog, so perhaps points in ride as well. Finally, if there are any homebrewed skills related to killing, torturing or humiliating people, you can be sure he maxed them out.

[Charles Phipps]

He also has Gourmet Cooking.

Damn Halflings and their Hobbitholes.

[Glome]

Aside from hide and move silently, he also has apparently maxed out jump and climb (he uses climb when he goes to assassinate Miko's horse). He also ranks in gourmet chef which is explicitly mentioned when he makes the MITD stew. He probably has some points in ride as well, so we have a better idea where his skill points are spent then any of the OOTS members, surprisingly enough.

[the_tick_rules]

well basically jason track is a feat that allows you to follow people's trails. but it relies on the survival skill to do it. belkar got track for free as a ranger feat but without the survival skill it's not very useful for him.

[SoD]

That... is actually quite plausible. The only flaw that I see in your logic is that Belkar has Evasion, (as seen in strip 469! :smallwink:) which comes at Ranger level 9.

And he says ''Huh...when did I learn evasion?''

So he either didn't know he had it, went up a level without realising, or there's some other reason (possibly something weird to do with the mark of justice, coupled with the fact that Roy's dead. Or that's something a friend of mine mentioned one time.

[Lord Zentei]

And he says ''Huh...when did I learn evasion?''

So he either didn't know he had it, went up a level without realising, or there's some other reason (possibly something weird to do with the mark of justice, coupled with the fact that Roy's dead. Or that's something a friend of mine mentioned one time.

Or maybe it's that he has ADD or something. I mean, this is the guy who forgets that he is supposed to be tracking. :smallbiggrin:

[Twilight Jack]

And he says ''Huh...when did I learn evasion?''

So he either didn't know he had it, went up a level without realising, or there's some other reason (possibly something weird to do with the mark of justice, coupled with the fact that Roy's dead. Or that's something a friend of mine mentioned one time.

Considering that Evasion only kicks in when you need to make a Reflex save against something for half damage and you succeed on that save, it's entirely plausible that the particular circumstances which would have clued him in just never came up before. It's not as if Belkar is known for paying attention to anything that doesn't allow for instant carnage.

[DreadSpoon]

well basically jason track is a feat that allows you to follow people's trails. but it relies on the survival skill to do it. belkar got track for free as a ranger feat but without the survival skill it's not very useful for him.

I'm sure that restating the same thing using the exact same terminology is a real help. Really. Everybody on the planet surely knows what a "feat" is, I'm sure.

In D&D, a "feat" is a special ability a character can gain in a number of ways when they gain a level (get more powerful). Feats are simple: you either have a particular feat, or you don't. Rangers, the type of character that Belkar is, get the Track feat automatically.

"Skills" are abilities that a character can improve over time. A skill has "ranks" which denote how good a character is at that particular skill. A character with 6 ranks in a skill is better at the skill than a character with only 2 ranks in the skill. The player has full control over which skills he adds ranks to, so even if a skill is very important to his character (like Survival is to a Ranger), he has the option of not giving the skill any ranks at all.

In D&D, in order to track somebody, you need BOTH a feat called Track and a skill called Survival. Even if you have 20 ranks in Survival (which is a lot), if your character doesn't have the Track feat, he isn't able to track at all. Belkar has the Track feat, but he had very few if any ranks in Survival. This means that he is able to track, unlike the rest of the party who can't track at all, but he is very, very bad at it. Most beginning first-level Rangers are probably better at tracking than a high-level Belkar, because most players would put the most ranks they could into Survival for a Ranger character.

On top of this, the primary attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, etc.) affect skills. A low attribute will impose a negative modifier on a skill, while a high attribute will grant positive bonus. The Survival skill is modified by the character's Wisdom score. So if Belkar has a very low Wisdom with a negative modifier (probably a -1 or a -2), and he has no ranks at all in Survival, he might actually have a total of less than zero to any dice roll he has to make to successfully track, which means it's very hard for him to track easy prey and impossible for him to track difficult prey.

The basic formula for checking if a skill works is 1d20 + ranks + attribute modifier + magic item bonus + circumstance modifier >= target number

>= means "greater than or equal to." 1d20 is a random number from 1 through 20 from rolling dice (a single twenty-sided die, specifically). A circumstance modifier is a plus or minus applied for the situation (a bad storm makes most skills harder, for example). If the above equation holds true, the skill is successful; if the total on the left-hand side is less than the target number, however, then the skill check fails.

So if Belkar is trying to track a creature with a target number of 15 (average difficulty), and he has zero ranks in Survival, a -2 Wisdom modifier, no magic items that assist in tracking, and no beneficial circumstance modifiers, then the dice roll must be at least 17 (out of a maximum of 20), which isn't great odds at all. Only 1 out of every 5 attempts to track would succeed. If he's attempting to track a creature on a target number of 20 or higher (not uncommon), it's impossible for him to track: even if he rolled a 20, the highest he could roll, the negative modifiers make it impossible for the test to succeed.

[Kaelaroth]

That... is actually quite plausible. The only flaw that I see in your logic is that Belkar has Evasion, (as seen in strip 469! :smallwink:) which comes at Ranger level 9.

Wasn't he taking levels in Barbarian though. Do they get it?

Maybe not.

Perhaps being so close to Haley created an empathic link between them! :smallwink:

[Fighteer]

Wasn't he taking levels in Barbarian though. Do they get it?

Maybe not.

Perhaps being so close to Haley created an empathic link between them! :smallwink:
Because there's no other evidence in the comic that any of the characters occasionally forget their own class abilities, amirite?

[Ecalsneerg]

Wasn't he taking levels in Barbarian though. Do they get it?


The OotS are considered to be around Level 13. This means he can easily have 9 Ranger levels with room for snarlin' and smashin' :P

[Squark]

Actually, Belkar is presumed to be an 11th level ranger/1st level barbarian, possibly with a second level of barbarian or another level of ranger. Its important to remember that neither of these are his favored class, which could cause him to fall behind the rest of the order, who are assumed to be 13th or 14th level.


NON- D&D translation: Each race has a favored class, like barbarian for half-orcs, rogue for haflings, wizard for elves, fighter for dwarves, and Bard for gnomes. Because Humans and Half-elves are "adaptable" they get their highest level class as a favored class. Anyway, multiclass charecters (Those with to or more classes) whose classes are farther than 1 level apart (Like a Gnome Fighter 5/Wizard6/rogue1) lose a percentage of their XP until they balance it out (10 or 20% per class out of place). (How Rouge2/Fighter/ranger4/Cleric5/Wizard6 works I don't know). Anyway, your favored class doesn't count, so if the aforementiones Gnome was instead a hafling, he wouldn't have an XP penalty.